Welcome to chapter 10 review of our book study on The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson
“This is a crucial part of the mission of motherhood: exposing our children to the power and majesty of our Creator God and encouraging them to respond with gratitude and their own creative efforts…It means acquainting all the children with the tangible evidence of God’s nature, creativity, and character, as well as helping them to express their God-given creative nature.” – Sally Clarkson
Romans 1:18-20 so clearly emphasizes, “His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.” What a passionate call to expose our children continually to God’s magnificent creation! I believe as children are given wide variety in the opportunities to explore creation, the more they will be exposed to a proper view and understanding of the magnificence of God and thus be able to aspire to exercising their own unique creativity in their everyday life and play. Let’s not get sucked into sitting them behind technology all the time! This can be an instrument for great learning but too much can distort their natural creative abilities from blossoming.
Exercising creativity is such an integral part of walking in the image of God. It is not limited to arts, crafts, or home decorating, as I so often assume. We are each created in God’s image and thus we each of the means within us to be creative. Creativity can be poured into every aspect of our homemaking – from storytelling to cooking to building blocks to crafts to music to basic problem solving.
The beauty of it all is that is doesn’t have to necessarily be all our own ideas! We can learn from each other and our creativity springs from learning to tweak each of those ideas to meet our own particular needs according to our households. Praise God for that!
Fill your home with creativity – meet those five senses! Music, nutritious food (another reason to avoid over processed or packaged foods – it doesn’t allow us to fully explore with our taste buds!), less technology, fresh flowers, paintings, pictures, a variety of tools and instruments such as crayons, pencils, paints and paper (recycle all your waste paper for children’s use!) for them to express their creativity, dress ups, legos and building blocks to encourage imaginative play.
I am one of those who can often give the excuss that I don’t have the natural gift of creativity…as it is integral gift of being made in the image of God, I have no excuse! I simply need to exercise and nurture creativity in my home and mothering.
Inspirational words!
Our home is always full of half dried paintings, new recipes, sewing projects and the like:0)
“Exercising creativity is such an integral part of walking in the image of God. ”
How true this is!
THanks for sharing ~
Suzy
This was a great chapter and a good reminder just how much our influence shapes our children’s perception of God and his magnificence.
I also just started reading a book called Everyday Talk by John Younts (it was referred to us this weekend at Ted Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart conference – which by the way he will be in Battleground next year if you are interested!) and he states the importance of how our everyday conversations shape our children’s view of God.
To me, that means that in each conversation and experience I want to be able to show a sense of wonderment and excitement for my Creator. Whether it is pondering God’s imagination as to the creatures he has created, or discussing how God never overlooks a detail when we discuss how even worms have a “job” to do.
A verse that we speak about a lot around here is Col. 3:23 “Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as if you are working for the Lord and not for men.”
I have to say it is a struggle to sometimes remember that myself, but I am realizing that by making this a priority with my kids my own heart has been so blessed. I can even scrub a toilet for the Lord!
And I can also explore nature, or art or music with the same attitude of worship and my kids will see that modeled and naturally do the same.
Thanks for the idea of the houseplants…I will have to try to find something “hardy” to bring into our home!
Hi. I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, and figured it was time to say hello.
I found you through my good friend, Kristi K. I’m from Oregon, but we live in Indonesia.
Anyhow, I love this book, and I think that this chapter made me realize that I need to be intentional about incorporating creativity into our lives. With the urgent often taking precedence, I don’t want to lose the things that make our lives special. Just my thoughts.
Blessings!
I cannot say enough how much I’m enjoying this book. I gave a copy to my friend for her birthday, and I’m buying it for my sister, who’s a new mom.
I haven’t reached this chapter yet, but I am always in need of good ideas for this topic. For my inspiration, I reach back to my own childhood, which was (thankfully) FREE from video games, or too much tv or battery operated toys. I’m so grateful my mom sent us outdoors to play, and I know I still love the outdoors because of this. We raked leaves and pine straw into “walls” that became our play house. We climbed trees. We sat and pulled the nectar out of honeysuckles. We made mud pies.
When we couldn’t go outdoors, my mom made sure we had paints, colors, clay,… some of my favorite memories were from creating things with clay or plaster of paris, or fabric or wood… and looking at things through our microscope.
I know because my mom (who can’t draw or paint or stitch a straight line, btw) provided all these creative outlets for us, I have a love and appreciation for our Creator.
On my blog Sunday, I listed the five books I have re-read the most (both a fiction and nonfiction list).
This book was on my nonfiction list! I love it.